This blog focuses on professional and social survival. Here, I talk about physical survival: Get through your Ph.D., and hopefully also through the rest of your research career without damaging your health or even your life.

The theorists think they are not at risk and can stop reading here. The experimentalists think they’re careful enough and can stop reading now – do you really want to take the chance? There are at least three important categories of occupational hazards for scientists, which I aim to make you aware of.

1 – Laboratory risks. Remember that the most important hazards in the laboratory are everyday objects and substances that do not appear to pose a special threat. Nitrogen gas, water, electricity, vacuum chambers, knives, heavy objects are real killers, and that is not meant as a metaphor. It’s the hazards you don’t expect and are unprepared for that are the most dangerous.

2 – Office risks. Repetitive strain injury, sick-building syndrome, backaches, copier toner allergy, and and falling books are unlikely to kill you in the literal sense. But they may steer your career in a not-very-positive direction.

3- Stress risks. A little bit of stress, over a very short period of time may energize you. Living under stress over a prolonged period of time will damage your physical and mental health. The damage may be irreversible. The risk is especially high if you are in a macho environment where personal problems cannot be discussed. Now, where would you find a combination of long-duration high risk projects, fixed-term contracts, stressful examinations, grant applications with long waiting times and high risk of failure, and a male-only culture, often determined by macho bosses?

Indeed these risks combine, to become even more dangerous. If you are stressed by immoral grant schemes, or failing macho managers, you may, as a result of stress,  forget to ensure adequate ventilation when working with nitrogen, exposing yourself to extreme danger. It, sadly, has happened, and, more sadly, resulted in several casualties among Ph.D. students worldwide.

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